^^*«> 




I 



i6.Si.4_ 



Author 



Title 



Imprint 



16—47372-3 QPO 



s'^i 



Ki. 



mm 



8.^^■l 



Vf 



SOMD MISSING AND 
MISPbAGCD ANGGSTORS 



Paper Read Before the Kittochtinny 

Historical Society, 
THURSDAY BVB^ilNG, MAY 30, 1907. 




By 



GEORGE O. SEIl^MAMER, 
Chamberebur^, Pa. 






//^. 






(c^^ Zp^ c>^ I 



Ancestry hunting in America has 
become a "fad." Even as a fad the 
pursuit is a worthy one. So far, a 
desire for the knowledge of their fore- 
bears has been an aspiration of Amer- 
ican women more generally than of 
American men. Necessarily the char- 
acter of the work accomplished has 
been amateurish, consisting for the 
most part of an array of names as un- 
intelligible as the lists of Irish kings 
of the lines of Heber and Heremon 
from the "Four Mastery." Incom- 
plete and unsatisfactory as are these 
collections of names they have their 
uses, and often serve as a foundation 
for valuable genealogical work. I re- 
gard the search for the ancestry of 
the descendants of the Pennsylvania 
pioneers as so important that it ought 
to attain to the dignity of a mission if 
not of a cult. The six, eight or ten 
generations that have sprung from 
the early settlers on the frontiers of 
Penn's province, represent a new 
type of American manhood. The ex- 
isting families of the Scotch-Irish 
pioneers are no longer Scotch. The 
descendants of the Pennsylvania 
Germans — Pennsylvania "Dutch" as 
they have been popularly called — are 
no longer German. In this part of 
the world began a blending of nations 
and even of races that has wrought 
a complete transformation. We, the 
great and the great-great grandchi- 
dren of the pioneers, are so near the 
beginnings of the transfusion of 
bloods that has resulted in this new 
^.merican type that it becomes our 
duty to trace our origin from its in- 
ception and to place the history of its 
development and progress upon rec- 
ord for our posterity. With this end 
in view I have chosen for my subject 
on this occasion, "Some Missing and 
Misplaced Ancestors," confining my 
theme to families whose ancestry be- 
longed to the Concocheague country. 
The missing ancestors of the Conoco- 
cheague pioneers whose descendants 
represent families of distinction in 
every state of ti*e Union are more 
numerous than one would suspect up- 
on a mere cursory examination of the 
subject. Their names are found on 
the tax lists of "Old Mother Antrim.' 
"Old Lurgan" and Guilford, Hamilton, 
Peters and Fannett Townships. In 



many cases these names represent 
American families of national and his- 
toric importance, and trace their an- 
cestry back to the Conococheague in 
a vague indefinite way. Among these 
a few are still represented in this 
community, but for the most part 
even their names are forgotten by the 
present owners of the soil that they 
were the first to break. Of the for- 
mer class whose descendants are 
known to all of us, I may name the 
Bards, Bonbrakes, Brackenridges, 
Culbertsons, Elders, Joneses, McDow- 
ells, Poes, Pomeroys, Reishers, Shields 
and Wilsons. Of the latter are the 
Allisons, Armstrongs, Bairds, BarrSj_ 
Beattys, Berryhi' "1, Bittingers, 

Browns, Browns .s, Buchanans, 
Campbells, Cassatts, Chestnuts, Doug- 
lasses, Dunns, Eatons, Elliots, Erwins, 
Ewalts, Findlays, Gasses, Gibsons, 
Harrises, "Hendersons, Hollidays, Ir- 
wins. Jacks, McBrides, TJoClellans, 
i.xcClures, McKeans, McLenes, .L*i»l- 
Mullins, Magaws, Matthews, Mitchells. 
Newells, Orbisons, Parkers, Pattons, 
iroormans, R^ciseys, Reas, Scotts, 
Smiths, Speers, Stevensons, Talbots, 
Taylors, Thomsons, Thompsons, Tor- 
rences. Turners, Van Lears, Waddells, 
Whites, Widneys, Works, Wrights 
and Youngs. 

Beginning with the first name on 
my list, the Bards, I find it represent- 
ed by two ladies of the highest re- 
spectability. Their relations, near 
and remote, are scattered all over the 
Union. The history of the Bard fam- 
ily has engaged my attention for a 
number of years with accumulating 
results, but for me it has been a sin- 
gularly interesting romance of ances- 
try hunting. To begin with, I had 
the ancestral names of Richard Bard 
and his wife, Catharine Poe, but be- 
yond the tragic story of their captiv- 
ity araong the Indians, as it is told 
in "Border Life," we had little data 
relating to their descendants and 
none coHceraiiig their antecedants. 
To maKe the matter worse, the late 
Dr. William Henry Egle, with the en- 
thusiastic but indiscriminating zeal of 
the amateur genealogist, gave us a 
wrong sign board for our lineal high- 
way. In a brief sketch of Richard 
Bard ,as a member of the Pennsylva- 
nia Convention that ratified the Fed- 



eral Constitution, Dr. Egle said that 
liis father. Hernard Bard, settled and 
built a mill on Middle Creek, In what 
is now Adams county. It was true 
that Richard lUird's father settled and 
built a mill on Middle Creek, but his 
name was Archibald, not Hernard. It 
was from that mill that Richard Bard 
and his wife were carried into cap- 
tivity by the savages in 1758. Egle's 
mistake cast upon me the burden of 
establishing Richard Hard's paientage 
by proofs that would have been ac- 
cepted as evidence in a court of law 
in a judicial proceeding. The chain 
of testimony when it was finally com- 
pleted was as follows: 

1. Maryland records and recitals 
filed in the Land Office of Pennsylva- 
nit show that Archibald Beard was 
one of four men who purchased under 
a Maryland title a tract of 5000 acres 
of land at ': airfield, Adams county, 
"n thdt is still known as "Carroll's 
Delight." 

2. An indenture on record in York 
county shows that Archibald Beard 
conveyed a part of this tract and the 
Mill Place, outside of it, to Richard 
Haird. 

3. A letter from George Steven- 
son, of York, printed in the "Pennsyl- 
vania Archives," gives information 
of Richard Bard's return from captiv- 
uy, and adds that he had not yet ar- 
rived at his father's house on Marsh 
Creek ,of which Middle Creek is a 
tributary. 

In the deed from Archibald Beard 
to Richard Baird the grantor men- 
tioned his son William, but notwith- 
standing it was a condition of the in- 
denture that the conveyance was to be 
void if Richard failed to support Arch- 
ibald for the rest of his life, the deed 
contained no direct proof that the 
grantee was his son. I now had on 
my hands a probable brother of Rich- 
ard Bard, of whom I knew nothing, 
with no legal evidence of their rela- 
tionship. It was very provoking. 
Besides, it was a question whether 
the names Beard, Baird and Bard were 
only variants of the same family 
name. Fortunately, this question was 
solved by three deeds on record in 
the Recorder's office at Chambers- 
burg. Archibald Beard had obtained 
a warrant for a tract of land near 



the nunnery in Qulncy township. In 
turn this land was the property of 
Archibald, William and Richard, all of 
whom executed deeds for it. Archi- 
bald's deed was signed Archibald 
Beard; William's was signed William 
Baird and Richard's was signed Rich- 
ard Bard. If it had not been for Dr. 
Egle's confident assumi)tion of Ber- 
nard as the Bard ancestor I should 
have regarded the proofs already ad- 
duced as a satisfactory adjustment 
of my genealogical problem, but with 
that blunder staring me in the face 
1 could not content myself without an 
absolute settlement of the vexed ques- 
tion. A weary pursuit of disappoint- 
ing chimeras, th false children of 
illusive and elusive clews followed, 
but in the period of hopes deferred, 
data for a family history of the later 
generations was obtained that is re- 
markably full and complete. At last 
I was shown a paper in the hand- 
writing of Archibald Bard, who for 
more than twenty years was an asso- 
ciate judge of Fi-anklin county. This 
paper contained a brief genealogy in 
scriptural form. It read thus: Arch- 
ibald Bard, which was the son of 
Richai'd, which was the son of Arch- 
ijald, which was the son of David, 
which was the son of William. My 
riddle was solved. A missing ances- 
tor was found, and the mistaken an- 
cestor was relegated to the German 
Bai'd family on the other side of the 
county to which he actually belonged 
A worthy doctor of divinity, whom 
I knew during his useful life, used to 
assert that everybody of the same 
name would be found to be kin, more 
or less remote, if their lineage could 
be traced. I do not believe that this 
assumption is true of all the people 
of the same name in any country, — it 
is certainly not true of many people 
of the same name in Pennsylvania. A 
glance at the passenger lists of Ger- 
man, French and Swiss immigrants in 
Rupp's "Thirty Thousand Names" 
will i-eveal many surnames generally 
assumed to be English or Scotch and 
by an easy transformation, Scotch- 
Irish. Among these immigrants were 
•irany Bards who settled in Montgom- 
ery, Berks, Lancaster, and York coun- 
ties, Pa„ and in Frederick county, 
Md. All the Bards now living in 



Berks and Lancaster counties are of 
German descent. The Bards of New 
York and New Jersey, now, I believe 
extinct so far as the name goes, were 
of French Huguenot origin. Michael 
Bard, a prominent man in York county 
in the Revolution, at the time of his 
death owned the Reichard farm, be- 
tween Fetterhoff's chapel and Mont 
Alto, in this county. Bernhard Bard, 
wnom Dr. Egle mistook for the 
father of Richard Bard, was a son of 
Martin Bard, who settled in Germany 
township in York, now Adams, county, 
at a very early period. The names of 
these immigrants were generally writ- 
ten Barth or Bardt, but in the second 
generation the name had become 
Bard and their descendants are Bards 
to this day. 

The president of your society is al- 
ways active in promoting Scotch-Irish 
movements, celebrating Scotch-Irish 
enterprises and exalting Scotch-Irish 
virtues, but I verily believe that his 
emigrant ancestor had not a drop of 
Scotch-Irish blood in his veins. Be- 
sides, his name was George and not 
Thomas. Some of the Pomeroys take 
it as a hardship that I insist upon 
changing the name of their American 
ancestor. I cnn only answer them 
that I sincertiy believe that their an- 
cestor knew his own name. Some- 
time before his death, the late Major 
John M. Pomeroy wrote a brief his- 
tory of the Pomeroy family, which was 
printed. "He died about 1770," Major 
Pomeroy said, speaking of the first 
of the name in this country: "I hoped 
to get the date of his death more ac- 
curately from the records of Cumber- 
land county, which at that date em- 
braced Lurgan township, but learned 
with regret that the Recorder's office 
at Carlisle was destroyed in 1776 to- 
gether with its contents. I found 
there the account of Thomas Pomeroy, 
who was the administrator of his 
mother, widow of the first Thomas 
from which it appeared that she died 
in 1777. Her name was Margaret." 

Major Pomeroy gave the names of 
the sons of the so-called first Thomas 
Pomeroy as Thomas, John, George and 
Samuel, and he added, that while he 
was not able to get the names of the 
four daughters, one of them married 
a Mr. Doyle and another a Mr. Dun- 



can. It is very clear that Major Pom- 
eroy was the victim of some modern 
Ananias, who possessed the peculiar 
gift of confidently asserting what he 
did not know. Not a scrap of the 
Cumberland county records was ever 
burned. There is on record at Car- 
lisle the will of George Pumroy, 
proved Nov. 6, 1776, in which he 
named a widow, Margaret; sons, 
Thomas, John and George; and daugh- 
ters Elizabeth, Mary, Hannah, Mar- 
garet and xsabel. Elizabeth Pumroy 
married Charles Boyle, and Margaret 
married David Duncan. It will be ob- 
served that the only difference be- 
tween these two lists — the one from 
tradition and the other from the will — 
was that there were three sons and 
five daughters instead of four sons 
and four daughters, and that Eliza- 
beth Pumroy married a Mr. Boyle in- 
stead of a Mr. Doyle. The similarity 
in the names of the Pomeroy sons and 
of the husbands of the two Pomeroy 
daughters is too striking to be a mere 
coincidence. If we are not to accept 
the testator in this case as the Pom- 
eroy ancestor as against the ancestor 
of tradition proofs of ancestry by pub- 
lic records, the best evidence avail- 
able to us, will become impossible. I 
confess that I do not like the substi- 
tution of ancestors, even as against 
tradition, and I never allow myself to 
desecrate the sanctity of a consecrat- 
es, name unless it is a duty that I owe 
to the truth of history. At the same 
time I may add that there is nothing 
so tenacious of life as a disproved tra- 
dition. 

In connection with these two cases 
of missing and mistaken ancestors, I 
wish to point out an unfounded claim 
to a German origin for a Conocochea- 
gue family. Among the early settlers 
along the Palling Spring in Guilford 
township was Benjamin Gass. With 
only the surname as a criterion that 
unusually accurate historian, Daniel 
Rupp, unhesitatingly set him down as 
a German. He came from the river 
Bann in Ireland. It is true, however, 
that many emigrants came to Penn- 
sylvania from Ireland whose ancestry 
was as Dutch as sour-krout. We may 
take the Widney family of Path Val- 
ley as a case in point. The first of 
the Widneys to settle in Ireland was 



an offlcer in the army of William of 
Orange who was rewarded for gal- 
lantry at Hoyne Water, by a grant of 
land in Ulster. As an illustration of 
Dutch ancestors and ancestresses 
born in Ireland, I may mention the 
fact that the mother of Judge Mellon, 
of Pittsburgh, although born in the 
vale of the St rule, in County Tyrone, 
was by extraction a Hollander. And 
as a further illustration of the eccen- 
tricities of nomenclature as a guide 
to racial antecedents, I may point to 
my own great-grand-mother, who, al- 
though born and married in Rotter- 
dam, was by surname a Powell. An 
esteemed Irish corespondent of mine. 
Sir Edmund Rewley, of Dublin, in- 
forms me that many of the Powells of 
Ireland shortened their name to Poe. 
The Poes of Ireland, who pronounce 
their name in two syllables, are 
Anglo-Irish. Some of them were 
officers in that oppressed country at 
the Cromwellian usurpation, but while 
they had long been settled in P^ngland 
they were either of French or German 
origin. There are Poes in this county 
today whose ancestors were emi- 
grants from Germany. If I were to 
cite all the cases of the kind that 
press upon me, you would be too late 
for supper, unless you made up your 
minds to run away from me. 

Another misapprehension that 
sometimes results in misconceptions 
of Cumberland Valley ancestries is 
the prevalent belief that the early 
settlers of this valley emigrated di- 
rectly from Ireland or Germany. As a 
matter of fact many of the early set- 
tlers were Bostonese before they be- 
came Pennamites. When the Rev. 
David McClure, who was a New Eng- 
lander by birth, passed through this 
valley in 1764 on his way to the Ohio, 
he was stopped to preach to the Pres- 
byterians at the Big Spring. After 
the service an aged lady approached 
him and asked him if his mother was 
a McClintock. He answered affirm- 
atively, and was then told that his 
venerable uncle, his mother's brother, 
was living in the neighborhood, and 
that the lady to whom he was speak- 
ing was his aunt, and the children 
who accompanied her were his cou- 
sins. In accordance with the hospi- 
tality of the time he became their 



guest and visited ihem on his fre- 
quent journeys through the valley. 
The McClintocks came from Medway, 
Mass., and the McClures settled in 
Boston as early as 1729. 

The MeCIures of the Cumberland 
and Shermans Valley usually impute 
their ancestry to the early settlers of 
the name in Chester county, but the 
claim is an exceedingly vague one, 
especially as William McClure of 
whom, so far as I know, no one has 
ever written, built a mill on the west 
branch of the Conococheague Creek, 
near Mercersburg, where the old Hies- 
ter mill now stands, as early as 1746. 
This is not only a case of a missing 
ancestor but of missing posterity. 
We know that he had a son Thomas 
M-cClure, who recovered in the courts 
of Cumberland county for materials 
furnished for the erection of the mill; 
that he had another son Patrick Mc- 
Clure, who interited one half of his 
lands under his will on record in Lan- 
caster county, and finally settled at 
McClure's Gap side by side with Rob- 
ert McClure, the great-grandfather of 
Colonel A. K. McClure, and that he 
had a daughter Mary McClure, who 
married John Scott, an early settler 
on the Antietam, in Washington town- 
ship, just across the line from An- 
trim. The old homestead which John 
Scott built is still standing. The only 
one of Mary McClure Scott's sons who 
had chidren was Dr. James Scott, of 
Virginia. He married a daughter of 
Bessie Lewis, the sister of George 
Washington. The Scott family of Vir- 
ginia have long been in search of their 
McClure ancestry, but it was only 
lately that they were able to obtain 
any knowledge of the situation of the 
Scott homestead, or of the identity of 
their McClure ancestor. 

Discursive as has been this paper 
so far, I hope it is not entirely want- 
ing in suggestiveness. My aim Is to 
interest those who can assist me in 
finding missing ancestors and in plac- 
ing misplaced ones in their true rela- 
tion to their posterity. There are 
many persons who would be happy to 
help me if they knew something of 
the searches I am making. 

I want them to know. 

I want information concerning the 
progenitors of the Bards, especially 



David and William Bard, or Baird, the 
grandfather and great grand-father of 
Richard Bard; to learn the name and 
parentage of the wife of Archibald 
Bard, or Beard, of "Carroll's Delight;" 
the exact relationship of Richard Bard 
and his wife, Catharine Poe, to the 
children of Capt. John Potter, the first 
sheriff of Cumberland county; data 
concerning the Bards, of Bardstown, 
Ky.; the parentage of Elizabeth Dee- 
mer, the wife of the Rev. David Bard; 
and any stray bits of Bard history. 

I want the missing link that will 
mend the chain of descent of Conrad 
Bonbrake, of Washington township, 
from Daniel Bonbrake, of Grindstone 
Hill. 

I want to connect the Breckenridges 
of Kentucky with the Breckenridges 
of "Culbertson's Row." 

I want to trace the lineage of the 
Culbertsons of "Culbertson's Row" 
back to the plantation of Ulster. 

I want a complete history of the 
Elder family, of Path Valley, and I 
particularly want the story of James 
Elder, who was 106 years old at his 
death, and of his wife Elizabeth, who 
died at 104. 

I also want to trace all the descend- 
ants of John Jones, who settled in 
Cowan's Gap after the Revolution, and 
reached the remarkable age of 113 
years. 

I want to determine the kinship of 
tho McDowells of Mt. Parnell, the 
McDowells of Kishacoquillas, and the 
McDowells of Virginia and Kentucky. 

I want to ascertain whether Thomas 
Poe of Conococheague was akin to 
the Anglo-Irish Poes of Counties 
Louth and Tipperary; or to the Poes 
of Drum, County Cavan, to which 
John Poe, the great-grandfather of Ed- 
gar Allan Poe, belonged; or the 
Powell-Poes, of Clonfeacle, County 
Tyrone. 

I want data for a complete genealo- 
gy of the Pomeroys. 

I want to supplement the easily ob- 
tainable knowledge of the Reishers, 
or Chambersburg, with equally full 
information of their kinsmen, the 
Rishers of Western Pennsylvania. 

And to conclude the list with which 
I began, I want to know all that I can 
learn of the forebears of the Shields 
and Wilson families. Judge Gillan, in 



his paper on the Wilson family, did 
not tell us the name of the father of 
John Wilson, and the grandfather of 
Surah Wilson, the founder of Wilson 
College. It was Moses. I want some 
Pharaoh's daughter to lift this Moses 
out of the bulrushes, so that, guided 
by a rod whose lineage runs back to 
Adam, he may lead the lost tribes of 
the Wilsons of the Conococheague. 
out of the Wilderness, in which their 
shades are wandering, into their an- 
cient heritage of reverence and affec- 
tion. 

Of the Conococheague ancestors 
whose names have disappeared from 
our midst — to use a favorite phrase 
of the gifted writers of "Duffield Drip- 
pings" and "Markes Markers" — I 
would write at length did not time and 
space forbid. While I shall not at- 
tempt to present the families I have 
named in alphabetical sequence I may 
say of them as a whole that their his- 
tory and that of their kinship by inter- 
marriage is the early history of the 
whole Conococheague region. Each 
of them is allied to the others by ties 
of blood that made the early tax-lists 
the threads for a magic carpet that 
like Solomon's had the power to waft 
their children wherever it was the de- 
sire of their hearts to be set down. 
Like the ancient nomads our early 
settlers quickly disappeared from the 
haunts that charmed them, but unlike 
the nomads they left traces behind 
them that it is our pleasure to search 
out and to celebrate. When Green- 
castle has an "Old Home Week" the 
chosen orators for the occasion tell of 
Col. John Allison, the founder, al- 
though there are no Allisons there to 
hear them. Had John Wallace, who 
platted the town of Waynesboro, been 
able to return to it in its centennial 
year he would have found no Wallaces 
but instead a teeming swarm of skill- 
ed mechanics issuing from the huge 
factories that have replaced the sim- 
ple workshops of his time. Mercers- 
burg still has its legends of the 
Smiths — "Squire William and Captain 
James, typical pioneers, both of them 
— but the descendants of these early 
worthies have disappeared from the 
neighborhood and are scattered over 
the West and South, and it may be 
doubted if many of the dwellers m 



8 



the modern town have ever heard the 
Btory of the achievements of the cap- 
tain of the "J^hicii Hoys" when the in- 
cipient village was still called Smiths- 
town. I may pause to add that the 
first defiance of the military authority 
of Great Britain in America occurred 
at old Fort Loudon after James Smith 
and his followers defeated the Indian 
traders in the Bis Cove in 1765 and 
afterward besieged the garrison in the 
fort until the arms taken from the 
people in the mountains were surren- 
dered. Even in Chambersburg it is 
not unlikely that the surnajiie of its 
founder will become a reminiscence 
before many years have sped. 

It is a strange feeling that comes 
over a man who tries to repeople a 
country as it was within fifty years 
of its first settlement. If he goes on 
a journey a missing ancestor is apt 
to peep out at him from almost 
every bush. With me on the trol- 
ley as far as the eastern limits of 
Stoufferstown is a journey of kaliedo- 
scopic reveries. Passing the hospital 
to the top of the hill on the new Bal- 
timore avenue I am at once a subject 
for many vivid impressions and mem- 
ories. On my left is the Falling 
Spring and in the far distance, al- 
most behind me, I can catch a climpse 
of the old Pritts house, built by Jos- 
eph Chambers, a son of the founder 
of Chambersburg, and inhabited for 
many years my his son-in-law, the 
Rev. John McKnight, and later by 
Joseph Pritts, editor of the "Whig." 
The quaint white mansion, now the 
home of my friend, Augustus Duncan, 
HiSq., was buiit by Judge James Rid- 
dle, the grandfather of Mrs. Kennedy, 
on what was originally the Baird plan- 
tation. Thomas Baird, the first set- 
tler, was the great-grandfather of the 
distinguished scientist, the late Prof. 
Spencer Fullerton Bairl, of the Smith- 
sonian Institution. East of the Baird 
land, along the Falling Spring, and 
up Hawthorn Run to its source, was 
the Gass tract. The Gasses were 
fullers and the elder Benjamin Gass 
built a fulling mill near where the 
old StoufTer Mill has long stood. The 
western part of the Gass tract was 
sold to Robert Jack, who kept the first 
tavern in Chambersburg on the site 
of the old National Bank. The Jacks 



were among the earliest settlers in 
Guilford township. Patrick and James 
Jack, brothers, were the first comers. 
Patrick was one of the founders of 
the Falling Spring Presbyterian 
church. He removed to North Caro- 
lina with his family. James was the 
father of Robert Jack. He owned 
the lands around New Franklin, after- 
wards the Snyder farms. His other 
sons were James, Patrick and John. 
James settled near Newvllle and was 
the father of a large family of sons 
and daughters. His daughter, Mary 
Jack, married John Herron, and be- 
came the ancestress of the Herron 
family of Pittsburgh. Patrick lived 
in Hamilton township and was the 
father of John Finley Jack, a member 
of the Chambersburg Bar. It was 
from this Patrick Jack that came the 
famous myth of Captain Jack, some- 
times called the "Wild Hunter of the 
Juniat:a." When he was a young man 
he was captain of a company of 
scouts on the Conococheague and was 
designated by Croghan to beat up the 
savage allies of the French in front of 
Braddock's march. With his men 
dressed as Indians he appeared in 
Braddock's camp, but his reception by 
that doughty and self-sufficient war- 
rior caused him to withdraw with his 
command. He was afterward a cap- 
tain in the Revolution, as was also his 
nephew, John Jack, a son of Robert. 
John Jack, the son of James, remov- 
ed to Westmoreland county, where he 
assisted in promulgating the Hannas- 
town Declaration of Independence and 
was active in defending the frontier 
against the Indians during the Revolu- 
tion. John Jack's daughter Mary mar- 
ried William Thompson, a son of 
Thomas Thompson, of Hamilton town- 
ship. William Thompson and Mary 
Jack were the great-grandparents of 
Josiah V. Thompson, of Uniontown. 
who was a prominent candidate for 
the Republican nomination for Gover- 
nor in 1906. The Gass lands passed 
into the possession of Robert Jack's 
sons, one of whom, James Jack, kept 
the hotel in the public square in 
Chambersburg in which the first 
courts of Franklin county were held. 
This Jack plantation extended across 
Baltimore avenue and included the 
famous Shetter's woods, in which Gen. 



Robert E. Lee had his headquarters in 
1863. A part of the Jack farm be- 
came the property of John Brown, the 
first postmaster of Chambersburg. 
Behind Shetter's woods, which are no 
longer in existence, was the first 
Chambersburg race course in the early 
years of the nineteenth century. 

A drive along the Falling Spring 
road is exceedingly interesting. At 
its beginning, a short distance east of 
the Stoufferstown school house, the 
Falling Spring once had an under- 
ground passage, in which the Nugent 
outlaws sometimes hid their plunder. 
The Nugent homestead was further 
up the Falling Spring, northeast of the 
Reformed Mennonite Church. All this 
territory, from the limits of Chanf- 
bersburg almost to the head of the 
Falling Spring, became the property 
of Abraham Stouffer, the ancestor of 
our Stouffer family, and included the 
Baird and Gass tracts, the village of 
Stoufferstown and the two Stouffer 
mills. At the head of the Falling 
Spring were the early Lindsay farms. 
The Lindsays were one of the early 
noteworthy families of Guilford town- 
ship. Somebody must help me to 
differentiate them and their descend- 
ants before I can write their history. 
Above the head of the Falling Spring 
were the farms of two of my great- 
grandfathers, Balser Oberkirsh and 
Frederick Hoffman. I am at a loss 
even when I attempt to write of my 
own kin, although I spent a part of 
my youth on the Hoffman land, then 
the Geesaman farm. Adjoining the 
Hoffman plantation was the home- 
stead of John Forsyth, whose sons 
were cousins and criminal associates 
of the Nugents. To the southeast- 
ward was the old Guilford Manor, of 
which I might have something to say 
it I were writing of land jobbing under 
the Penns in the eighteenth century. 
On this manor Edward Crawford ob- 
tained large tracts of land, some of 
which remains in the Crawford name 
to this day. 

A trip by automobile or a carriage 
drive over the Bedford turnpike from 
Chambersburg to Fort Loudon reveals 
a romantic country once peopled by 
historic families. This is especially 
true of Hamilton township, including 
the L north of the turnpike. On Back 



Creek, above Brake's Mill, were the 
plantations of William Ramsey, after- 
wards owned by his sons William, 
Thomas, Benjamin and John. Will- 
iam Ramsey's descendants are to be 
found in Pittsburgh, in Washington 
county, Pa., and in Harrison county, 
O., but strenuous efforts were requir- 
ed on their behalf to identify the old 
Ramsey homestead, and so far it has 
been found impossible to establish 
their exact relationship with the old 
Ramsey family of Bucks county, to 
which they undoubtedly belonged. 
William Ramsey, the eldest son of 
William Ramsey, the first settler, 
was an ensign in active service in the 
Revolution. He was a member of 
Rocky Spring Presbyterian Church. 
One would imagine that the Revolu- 
tionary privileges to which his de- 
scendants are entitled could not be in 
doubt, but notwithstanding this ap- 
parent certainty I was shown what 
purported to be a full genealogy of 
the family, no part of which was capa- 
ble of verification. I believe that all 
the Ramsey families of Franklin 
county, of which there are three dis- 
tinct branches, belong to the same 
stock, but in all my efforts to trace 
the connection the proofs have eluded 
me. This is all the more to be re- 
gretted because there is reason to be- 
lieve that the Ramseys of Burnt 
Cabins are descended from William 
Ramsay, a brother of Dr. David Ram- 
say, the distinguished historian, while 
it is not improbable that Major James 
Ramsey, the great-grandfather of 
President Benjamin Harrison, was of 
the same family. County records are 
seldom sufficient to establish a lineage 
of any family and, strange to say, 
even with a family as noteworthy as 
the Ramseys, Bible records are 
scarce. 

West of the Ramsey plantation, 
partly in Hamilton and partly in St. 
Thomas townships, were the Shields 
lands and the broad acres of the Wil- 
sons. Two of the Ramseys, Benjamin 
and John, married Shields girls, sis- 
ters, and the only living descendants 
of John Wilson bear the Shields name. 
Part of the WMlson lands were origi- 
nally settled by Capt. Joseph Arm- 
strong, an officer in the French and 
Indian War and a member of the As- 



10 



Senibly. He took great Interest In the 
Construction of the "new road" for 
(Jencral nraddock, even advancing 
tjionej' for the payment of the road- 
makers out of his own purse. On the 
7th of August, 1755, while Dunbar, 
the Tardy, was making his hasty 
flight down the Cumberland Valley, he 
organized a company of voluntary 
associators among his neighbors for 
the defense of the frontier against in- 
cursions of the French and Indians. 
His sons, John and Thomas, were pri- 
vates Id this company. John Arm- 
strong, the eldest son of Joseph, re- 
moved to Orange county, N. C, before 
the Revolution. His record in the 
Revolution was a noteworthy one. 
He entered the Continental service as 
a captain in the 2nd North Carolina 
Regiment, September 1, 1775; was 
major of the 4th North Carolina from 
October 6, 1777, to July 17, 1782; was 
appointed deputy adjutant general to 
General Gates, August 3, 1780; and 
became lieutenant colonel of the 1st 
Rej?iraent, North Carolina Line, July 
17, 1782. He retired January 1, 1783. 
He had a son Joseph. Thomas Arm- 
strong, the second son of Captain Jos- 
eph, removed to Orange county, N. C, 
before the Revolution. He entered 
the Continental service, April 16, 
1776 ,as a first lieutenant in the 5th 
Regiment, North Carolina Line, and 
was promoted to be captain, October 
25, 1777; he served to the close of the 
war. Captain Armstrong was wound- 
ed and taken prisoner at Fort Fayette, 
June 1, 1779, — exchanged in December, 
1779, he was captured the second 
time at Charleston, May 22, 1780, and 
exchanged in July, 1781. Joseph Arm- 
strong, the third son of Joseph, the 
elder, was born in the Conococheague 
Valley in 1739 and died in 1811. He 
was too young to be enrolled as a 
member of his father's company, in 
175.', but it is probable that he saw 
service before the close of the French 
and Indian War. In 1776 he was Colo- 
nel of the 5th Battalion, Cumberland 
county militia. Among the captains 
of companies in his battalion were 



Samuel Culbertson. George Matthews 
and James McConnell, all members of 
Rocky Spring Church. The Rev. John 
Craighead, the pastor, was a private in 
Captain Culbertsons company. The 
battalion saw service in the winter 
campaign of 1776-77. In his will he 
left his farm on which he lived to 
Joseph Armstrong, son of his brother 
John, of Orange county, N. C, after 
the death of his wife; the "upper 
place" he directed to be sold and 
named as beneficiaries of the fund — 
Mary, daughter of Patrick Jack; Mary, 
daughter of Robert McConanghy, and 
wife of Jacob Cassatt; Samuel Arm- 
strong and John, sons of John Flnley, 
dec'd; Joseph Armstrong, son of John 
ijiackburn, Ohio; and George Arm- 
strong, Esq., of Greensburg, Pa. 
Colonel Armstrong married Elizabeth 
Flnley, daughter of John Flnley. Sh© 
died March 11, 1820. They had no 
children. James Armstrong, fourth 
son of Joseph, the elder, was colonel 
of the 8th Regiment, North Carolina 
Line, from November 26, 1776, to June 
1, 1778. He afterward commanded a 
regiment of Rangers, and was report- 
ed among the killed and wounded at 
Stone Ferry, June 29, 1779. William 
Armstrong, fifth son of Joseph, the 
elder, removed to Orange county, N. 
C, before the Revolution, where some 
of his descendants still own the old 
homestead. He entered the Continen- 
tal service, January 4, 1776, as an en- 
sign In the 1st North Carolina Regl- 
met, and was promoted to be second 
lieutenant, April 10, 1776, first lieuten- 
ant, January 1, 1777, and captain, Au- 
gust 29, 1777. He retired January 1. 
1783. Captain Armstrong was wound- 
ed at Ramsour's Mill, June 20, 1780. 
The family Is now extinct In Pennsyl- 
vania. 

I would like tu continue my journey 
around Mt. Parnell and visit the early 
settlers — the Dixons, the Campbells 
and the McDowells — In their homes, 
but time admonishes me that the way 
is long and that I have taxed your at- 
tention sufficiently. 



Mm 

ll'Jciff 



M 



